jkcarew

Kinda missing the point by citing Rooker’s ST slash line by itself. It’s the K’s...which are not as beholden to the mitigating circumstances of sss as are the other factors going into the slash line. Rooker struck out in 48% of ST PA’s. 48%. He made Sano, who had an absolutely atrocious spring offensively, look like Wee Willie Kepler. Rooker started out decent, and then was pretty much a train wreck in appearances over the last 2-3 weeks. As someone who was likely to platoon quite a bit (and on the short end of the platoon), I’d much, much rather see Rooker iron out some issues as an every-day player at AAA. He’ll be back when/if he irons things out.

I do think the quality of depth is in a good spot. In fact, I’m getting a high-floor/low-ceiling vibe for this club. Hope I’m wrong on the ceiling part, but I’m having a hard time figuring out where the offensive resurgence is going to come from. One final elite/healthy year from Donaldson? Meanwhile though...we continue to perpetuate the myth that certain players from the 2019 Red Wings had ‘monster’ years. Context. Zander Wiel posted a 834 OPS. Entire teams matched that in the 2019 IL. Rochester posted 810 as a team. Jaylin Davis posted a 1112 in a partial season. Jake Cave a 984, Brent Rooker a 933, Tomas Telis a 854. Wiel, someone who apparently can only play 1B/DH, was ‘decent’, not ‘monster’.

The analytics say it’s more important to be above average offensively than above average defensively...and that ethos has strengthened as balls-in-play have continued to decline. So, we can say it’s ‘flexibility’ or a ‘better/new’ type of athlete, but I don’t think that’s the case at all...and that take doesn’t pass the eye-test, either. If anything, today’s players are much slower (and bigger/stronger) on average than players of 30 years ago. Instead, IMO, it’s simply a growing trend, an inevitable trend given the modern game, to put the organization’s 9 best available hitters in the lineup as often as possible, while making the considerable defensive compromises necessary to make that happen. Defense-first players are dinosaurs, only existing at C, SS, and CF...rapidly approaching extinction at CF, and critical habitat showing signs of stress at SS and C. Great defensive players will continue to come along, but more and more as opportunistic occurrences and less and less structurally (i.e., how players are developed, evaluated, and promoted). The bias for offense above defense is greater now than for any previous era.

Rooker was so upset upon being notified of this injustice, that he went right out there and posted three more K’s in 3 AB...to bring his ST K% to a tick over 46%. He should demand a trade.

“Flexibility” is simply a product of developing a top-end starter once every blue moon, (and refusing to play anywhere near the top end of starting pitching free agency). Still, it’s something to be thankful for in these uncertain times. But for the grace of God, our favorite club could be saddled with the perennial dilemmas faced by Cleveland or Tampa Bay of whether to pay or trade for can’t-miss blue-chip prospects, their growing stable of all-star starting pitchers.

The only reason we hasn’t played at least AA ball is because of COVID. Not all prospects are required to delay their arrival due to COVID. It’s something to consider for sure, but it’s not a rule. Everyone thinks he’ll hit, he was drafted 3rd overall as a refined college bat two years ago now...at it’s not like he’s been anywhere close to overmatched this spring. Oh, and last year the Sox managed a very productive lineup with a DH that OPS’d 627. Of course you play him. (Almost same exact age as Kirilloff. Drafted higher. Performing much better in ST. And I haven’t noticed anyone here suggesting starting Kirilloff out of the gate would have been an act of desperation on the Twins part, despite the fact that Kirilloff would be replacing someone who OPS’d 792)

If the Twins overall starting isn’t a good notch better than the White Sox, I think it’s going to be hard to win the Central for the Twins. Last year the Sox lineup was better than the Twins, but their starting pitching wasn’t close. Jimenez hurts the Sox, for sure, but it’s not like the Twins lineup has added offense. I think the thing I feel best about relative to Chicago as a Twins fan is Larussa. Could work out, I suppose. I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten how to manage a game. Still, it seems that there’s the real potential that that blows up and maybe sooner than later?

It is weird, though, that they didn’t give either even one start this spring (so far). I suppose they would have, at least for Kopech one would think, in a ‘normal’ ST with the higher number of games (split-squads, etc)

It seems a bit questionable to lump Simmons and Buxton together as ‘high usage’. Any SS is in an entire different category of usage than any CF, including Buxton. That’s still true, even in today’s game. IMO, Buxton is just Buxton. Center Field didn’t do much to create material injury issues for Puckett or Hunter who both played the position aggressively (and in the case of Hunter, covered a ton of ground). Call me skeptical regarding how much this is moving the needle regarding the predictability of injuries. Worth a try, I guess...if someone’s going to pay for it.

Luckily, Simmons and Buxton have been able to mitigate this throughout their careers by employing low and really low respective OBP’s

It’s hard to argue that there’s not more work for him to do...both in absolute terms and relative to Rooker. He’s still likely to surpass Rooker, but he shouldn’t be riding the pine in the majors in the meantime.

But, spin rate? What am I missing here? Has it been scientifically proven that a spin rate exceeding X cannot be achieved without a foreign substance...or more than Y standard deviations from the mean is impossible? Exactly what is X and Y then? Or is the league at such a loss for ways to improve balls-in-play, that they’ve simply outlawing really really good pitches? There’s a person monitoring a laptop in the press-box and wired to the umpire. And we add to the lexicon of the game: in addition to “Ball two, outside!”, we can add “Ball two, unfair!”

Every time Max hits the ball to the left of center, it’s a miss-hit, an accident. It happens, but it’s usually something accidentally sliced (which can work), or a pitch he was late on and hits lazily in the air. At this point it just is what it is, because it’s the same every year. The ball has to go over the fence at a very healthy rate when he hits it, or his value will be very limited.

I think they look at DH like the Twins look at LF (at least before the loss of Jimenez)... Plenty of options on any given day, with help on the way from major prospects. In this case for Chicago, they have 23 year-old former 3rd overall pick Andrew Vaughn to add to the mix. It’s likely a matter of when, not if, he’ll be brought up (although, it will require a roster move).

There are 100 reasons ST stats don’t correlate. And they’re all real. Still, when a player is K’ing 43% of his PA (Sano)...or pulling every single ball in play and batting .061 (Kepler)...then it MIGHT be saying something about where those players are in addressing their fundamental weaknesses. Or maybe they’re just starting slow.

You don’t think Morris ever had 11-game starting stretches as or more dominant than Maeda just had in 2020? You’d be wrong. Not with the Twins...but with Detroit. Multiple times. (And to be fair to Morris, the 66.2 innings Maeda pitched in 2020 would only be the equivalent of 8 or 9 Morris starts.) Also pretty disingenuous to suggest Morris was ‘average’ (or worse) in the post season when his numbers are skewed by a disastrous age 37 campaign....a career stage Maeda will have to go a ways to even have a chance to match. Morris was 7–4 in the postseason and across the 7 wins he was required to AVERAGE 8.2 innings per start. 8 and 2/3 average start across the 7 wins. No opportunity to duck the meat of the batting order the 3rd time through...or the 4th. So, yeah...you should have left it at ‘it’s oranges to orangutans’. In the meantime, I’m thinking Maeda is going to be very good in 2021...and am still hoping he can help Berrios somehow in Jose’s ongoing quest to attain elite command, because Maeda certainly has it.

If by “fun” you mean hard to take seriously...I’m with you.

Authors may need to challenge themselves to be a bit more objective in this series. As a club, the White Sox lineup was significantly better offensively than the Twins was last year. Significantly. And they have more, not fewer, key young guys with additional upside. Do the Twins have relative advantages among lineup players? Yes....and maybe. But, it’s not even remotely as one-sided as suggested by the author. I shudder to think of the upcoming pitching comparison...where the Twins were actually way better than Chicago last year, and still figure to have an advantage.

Well, the club fell all the way to middle of the AL pack last year offensively. And then was beyond anemic in the post season. So, that in itself would spawn some speculation regarding weather 2020 was anomaly or trend. I’d say that the ‘concern’ regarding how many are swinging it this spring so far is perfectly relevant.

Exactly. The rules limiting fielder positioning SCREAM ‘law of unintended consequences’. Hate it. Shifting isn’t new and isn’t the problem. The problem is that practically all batters have the same approach: take strikes until they get a pitch they can pull and launch or until they strike out. Giving them an occasional extra single when this miss by a little instead of missing by a lot does nothing to fix the issue long term. It makes it worse. It’s up to the computer apparently on how low batting averages and OBP are going to go. At any time batters can decide to give in and take a pitch on the outer half early in the count and hit the ball the opposite way. Problem solved. It’s worked for 130 years or so and will work again when the tipping point is reached.

Isn’t it interesting that nobody seems concerned with Maeda adding a couple of ticks of VELO to his 90 MPH fastball? Weird.

Twins have key players whose offensive value is very dependent upon fly balls going over the fence. Low BA/OBP guys. If they’re not hitting doubles and home runs, when they put the ball in play, they’re going to be offensive liabilities. Not going to win a championship waiting for Kepler, Sano, Buxton to turn into high BA/OBP players. Meanwhile, a couple of the key guys you’re counting on to balance some of that with some OBP or BA...like Donaldson and Cruz, Kirilloff...have obvious risk/issues. So, fair to be concerned given the potential difference in the ball, and also given results thus far this spring. Panic, no. Concern, yes.

You’re worried about the #8 and #9 guys in the bullpen? Even if we had 9 all-stars in the bullpen...ranging from HOF’er to guy having really good year...the #8 and #9 would still never see enough leverage to matter more than maybe a game in the regular season and zero in the post season. There will always be blowouts, there will always be planned and unplanned off days, there will always be days when the staff only has to cover 8 innings. IMO, much better to worry...always, and no matter what, this year included...about how the top guys perform. Also, IMO, if the Twins are on track for the post-season, it’s a no-brained to use starting depth in the bullpen if the middle or bottom really do break that horrifically (or they become ‘openers’). But again, nothing’s going to save you if the top end breaks.

The impact of Expected Runs on modern bunting is over-stated, or at least over-simplified. It's about who's playing the game. People didn't need Sabermetrics to know you didn't ask Killebrew to bunt (or hit behind the runner; or take an outside pitch the other way). And I'm pretty sure Killebrew was bad at all those things, simply because I never saw him do any of them. But asking Frank Quilici to bunt...or even Matty Alou? Completely different. Believe me, every manager in 1969 would gladly have given up Alou's 231 hits, bunting ability, and 35 strikeouts, to take on the hardship of Killebrew's 85 K's and inability to lay down a good bunt.. The difference is the Frank Quilici's are dead, and the Matty Alou's are dying. In their place? Players trying and failing to be Killebrew or Reggie Jackson. Producing half the levels of goodness with twice (or more) of the badness. Of course, Sabermetrics has a lot to do with that. And the numbers feed on themselves. First, they confirm pitching specialization has made it even harder to be Matty Alou (contact, stringing hits), which in turn, further reinforces the need for everyone in the development and scouting cycles to try even harder to produce Killebrew's (yank and launch, in case you hit it). That, of course, drives the contact/hit numbers down even further. And so it goes...where will it end? The bunt remains the correct play under the same circumstances it always was the correct play. Over-utilized in the past? Yes, but probably not as much as is the current perception given the conditions, players, and ballparks of the past. And under-utilized in the modern game...due in no small part to circumstances where neither the bunter nor the batter in the on-deck circle have the bat skills to execute the strategy.

I agree with the sentiment...but I can’t work up much consternation over these two. I think a team like the Twins expected to compete for a championship can only roster so many centerfielders who don’t have more than a handful of PA beyond low A ball. They chose Celestino who falls into that caregory, and exposed Baddoo who does, as well. Beyond that, the 2021 Twins kinda owe it to themselves to carry some of the Kyle Garrick’s of the world. And then, given his 2019 elbow injury and then COVID, the last opportunity to trade Baddoo was probably at the end of 2018, or at the 2018 trade deadline...quite some time ago. The fact that the Tigers would take and carry someone like Baddoo (683 OPS in 131 A+ PA)...and a guy considered to have plenty of upside, but not really a top prospect...it just demonstrates how far the tanking thing has gone in MLB. (Not that I wouldn’t have done the same thing if I were the Tigers.) Meanwhile, I’m not sure Wells ever reached the status that would have made him particularly material in a trade. Again, perfect for a tanking team, but not someone a tanking team would have given up anything near a promising prospect for in a trade.